Turning Yard Maintenance Into a Utility

By Ken Davis, TaskEasy CEO

From taxis to small tasks, the Internet has been steadily transforming the service economy. Now, the digital revolution is turning its gaze toward property management and is offering SaaS services, apps and Web platforms to handle tasks like lead management, lease signing and renters insurance, which help managers save time, money and energy.

But what about the other expenses that come with managing a property, like home exterior maintenance?

Utilities lead to less struggle and fewer surprises

Typically, yard maintenance is already the responsibility of residents. However, the individual responsibility often leads to poor maintenance, which results in higher deferred maintenance costs for property managers and longer turn times at vacancy.

When you’re managing multiple properties the last thing you need to worry about is having to deal with neglected landscape surprises when tenants end their leases. These surprises are often time consuming and expensive. Lawn mowing and yard maintenance is already a resident responsibility – why not make yard service a resident requirement?

Lawn mowing as a utility for occupied properties not only protects the owner’s property, but also offers property managers an additional margin opportunity, results lower turn costs (no more disaster clean ups when residents move out), and decreases average turn time at vacancy.

How to implement

Here are a few ways to implement yard maintenance as a utility:

• Include lawn services in rent amount
• Require residents to sign up for a lawn service at lease signing or give them local options to choose from. Property owners can bill residents each month along with rent, giving managers the opportunity to markup cost
• Look for on-demand services, like TaskEasy, to simplify managing mowing on all properties

In the end, making exterior maintenance a utility will help owners maintain rental properties better. This improves property values in the long term, allowing for higher resale values and faster turns, and that makes for happier, more productive property managers.

Ken Davis built TaskEasy to support contractors in their effort to deliver consistent services to customers. He is passionate about giving customers easy ways to take care of their homes and rental properties, as well as helping contractors make a decent living doing what they do best—providing high quality service at competitive prices.